


The House on the Hill

by insulamea16



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Haunted House, M/M, Romance, True Love, horror story, mystic places, soul mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 17:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insulamea16/pseuds/insulamea16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, The year 2215. Tommy Joe Ratliff, a successful musician, buys a house in the suburbs of LA. From his first night there he starts having strange dreams. </p>
<p>   In these dreams he meets a handsome man, who calls himself Adam and apparently lives in the house nearby. Night after night Tommy keeps seeing Adam in his dreams, falling in love with someone who he thinks never existed.</p>
<p>   Scared and desperate, Tommy suddenly finds out that Adam was a real person and he did live in the house nearby – more than two hundred years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The House on the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the incredible GlambertUK71. Thank you so much, bb! Love you!
> 
> Soundtrack for the story 
> 
> https://mega.co.nz/#!Rl8gQJ6a!kWP1mN6ymvSou-Fq39-n3ejErn7mcNbgbc5WpyQgyIk
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters. The story was inspired by Adam Lambert’s song “Sleepwalker” and a Mexican horror movie “La casa del fin de los tiempos”.

**The House on the Hill**

**Part 1 Sleepwalker**

 

 

**Chapter 1**

**Falling Asleep**

_I saw a picture of you_

_Hanging in an empty hallway_

_I heard a voice that I knew_

_And I couldn’t walk away_

_It took me back to the end_

_Of everything_

 

 

_Adam Lambert “Sleepwalker”_

 

   Tommy pressed his thumb to the slot on the door and it opened, sliding inside the wall. He stepped into the house and dragged last two boxes of his stuff inside.

   The house, built about two hundred years ago, had been reconstructed a few times, in order to bring it up to date, but it still had this twenty first century spirit about it, especially from the outside, where the shell had remained untouched. All Tommy’s friends said he was crazy and should just buy a good modern house – like he would listen to them, seriously! The bland streamlined boxes built today had zero appeal to him.

   Tommy’s two favourite pieces of furniture looked strange here – his beloved armchair and his coffee table – both old fashioned, made of real wood. Everything else in the house was made of shiny plastic, hard edged and sterile, painted all the colours of the rainbow.

   Tommy muttered something not nice about previous owners and proceeded into the centre of the living room. He looked on all the boxes around him, sat on the sofa and sighed heavily. This moving was going to be end of him for sure. But he’d needed to do this, and on his own too, if nothing to prove a point.

   “Ok, let’s do it” he dragged a particularly big box towards himself and started to fish out his possessions one by one.

   A few hours later he was desperate. The music was blasting at maximum volume – Tommy had tried to create more of an enthusiastic mood for unpacking. That is if the retro song named “Time of Dying” could be called enthusiastic. Tommy played it on repeat and sang along “Is this all a dream, Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare…” Why he was suddenly so fixed on just one song was beyond him.

   The living room looked like a refugee camp now. Tommy’s clothes, guitars, laptop, ipod, dishes and God knows what else were scattered on all the shiny surfaces. Trying to decide what went where was proving tricky and he’d changed his mind half a dozen times. At least he’d got the bed sorted, but the sixth time of moving his music equipment across the floor left him completely drained. On cue his stomach gurgled, and he stretched tired muscles and rose to his feet.

   Tommy kicked the last emptied box out of the way and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and stared at the lonely packet of dehydrated salad, the last item of food he’d had at the old place, and he knew damn well why. Still, it was food, sort of. The young man sighed and opened it, emptied it into one of the bowls he’d fished out of the kitchen box, and put it into the hydrator. A minute later the salad was ready. Chopped vegetables looked disgustingly healthy.

   “Perfect ending for a perfect day” grumbled Tommy and reached out for a spoon. There was no spoon in the drawer though. Tommy threw one hopeless look in the direction of the living room. No way could he find spoons in that chaos. He looked at his salad again. What now, eating with hands?

   “Oh, fuck it all!” he exclaimed and headed out of the house. Passing the living room, he shouted “Shut up” and the music stopped playing, the window blinking as the virtual player icon disappeared from the glass.

   Tommy went out of the house and took a deep breath. The surroundings were beautiful and he remembered why he wanted to buy this place. The trees around the house, a little pond on the left, the low green hills he could see rising in front of him over the road, leading away in the distance. It was starting to get dark; the air was cool and fresh. The mist was gathering on the ground, threading through the small stand of trees across the way and on the hills. Tommy looked towards one of the hills again. He was sure he could see what looked like another house over there. A house that wasn’t there before.

   That was strange. Houses do not appear out of nowhere. He’d been certain that his was the last dwelling along this road on the edge of town, one of a number of reasons this spot was so perfect. Tommy shrugged. He was too tired and hungry to wonder about this now.

   He walked over to his car, started the engine and headed for the diner he’d seen on his journey here, down the end of the road.

***

   Tommy sighed contentedly and pushed back on the sofa. He already loved this diner. Fried potatoes, beans and sausages - the food was really good here, no vegetarian healthy nonsense, thank you very much! His mood was much better; all the chaos at home didn’t seem so disastrous anymore.

   He asked for the bill and waited, looking around absent-mindedly. People in the diner were talking in soft voices. Outside it was fully dark now. He thought about his band, their new album - all the things they were going to do later this week. A fresh start, not a moment too soon.

   “Here you are, sweetie” he heard a voice and looked up to see a middle-aged woman in pink apron. She put the bill on the table and looked curiously at Tommy. The woman looked friendly enough and Tommy decided there would be no harm in asking.

   “Thank you” he said and handed her a bank card. None of this implant chip nonsense he was glad to see, sometimes the old ways were the best.

   “You know, I was wondering if you could tell me… I live up the road and…”

   “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You’re the guy who bought that old house!”

   “Yeah, that’s me” Tommy smiled to her. Word seemed to have got around quickly that someone was occupying the ‘quaint old house on Latimer Road’. “Do you know if there is a house opposite mine, across the hills? I saw something there, but I wasn’t sure what it was, couldn’t make it out in the dark.”

   The friendly expression disappeared from the woman’s face immediately.

   “That house…” she said darkly. “Yes, there is a house, about a mile from your place, I guess. Wouldn’t go there if I were you.”

   Tommy’s curiosity was peaked immediately. He was absolutely sure he didn’t see any house on the hills before this evening, but who knows… He was so busy with moving his stuff, probably just didn’t notice it.

   “Why?” he asked.

   “A bad place” said the woman. “People used to disappear there” she added in a dramatic voice. “Nobody even lives there anymore; the place has been empty for at least a few decades.”

   “Disappeared?” asked Tommy with genuine interest, his tiredness completely forgotten.

   “Oh, yes! Last family who lived there – my mother was working in this diner back then; I was helping her and knew them a bit. A nice couple, they had a daughter too. Lucy was her name, I think… They’d often come here. One day they just stopped showing up, and I heard people saying nobody knows what happened to them. All of their things were still in the house, the man didn’t warn anyone at his company that he was leaving... They were just gone and nobody ever saw them again.”

   Tommy could see by the sparkle in her eye that she was enjoying the conversation now.

   He turned to the window, but of course he could see nothing but his own reflection – it was too dark outside. Somewhere in the dark hills up there was an abandoned house with a sinister reputation. Maybe moving here was not a bad idea after all.

   Tommy was a big fan of horror movies and stories – anything scary enough he considered the perfect entertainment. He looked back at the woman. She was looking at the window, probably also thinking about the strange house out there.

   “Were there any other disappearances?” he asked. The woman broke the stare and turned her attention back to Tommy.

   “Oh yes, all the time. They say everybody who owned that house disappeared under strange circumstances but one can’t be sure about this – the house is quite old, as old as yours, I think.”

   “I’d better go and sort out your bill, young man” the woman smiled and headed to the counter. Tommy stared back at the window and decided that he absolutely must visit that house. Maybe even tomorrow.

   The waitress returned with his card, Tommy thanked her and was about to leave when the woman called after him.

   “Hey, young man?”

   “It’s Tommy” he answered, wondering what she might want from him.

   “Right, Tommy” she said and looked suspiciously at him. “You’re not going to do any exploration there, are you?”

   Well, she was clever, Tommy had to give her that. He laughed.

   “What? Of course, not! Not after the stories you told me!”

   “Sorry,” the woman smiled. “Some people like adventure too much. Not the best idea in these places”

***

   Tommy drove back in the dark. He loved his open car, loved how he could feel the night’s air on his face. The road’s lines disappeared under the wheels. He could see the dark outlines of hills and the trees along the road.

   He drove in the gates and parked the car in his drive way. Light turned on automatically and Tommy went into the house, straight to his bedroom.

   “Turn off” he mumbled and the light in the house and in the driveway went off, leaving Tommy in complete darkness. Tommy shrugged off his jeans, fell on the bed and closed his eyes.

   It seemed like less than a minute, but when Tommy opened his eyes again, the sun was shining brightly outside. He heard a heavy knock on the door – that must had woken him up.

   Tommy climbed out of the bed and went downstairs. He opened the door but saw nobody there. Did he imagine the knock on the door? The blonde man took a step out of the house and looked around. Cool morning wind disheveled his hair and made him shiver.

   Tommy was about to return to the house when he saw something on the ground. It was a big rock lying in the middle of the path that led to his front door. Under the rock Tommy saw a corner of white paper.

   Tommy lifted the rock and took the piece of paper. Words in a shaky handwriting read:

   “Help me! I can’t get out. Please!”

   Tommy looked around again. There was no sign of anyone around him. Was it someone’s stupid joke? His attention was again caught by the dark frame of the house across the hills. The mist was gone and now Tommy could see it clearly. The stories of disappeared people came to his mind again.

   Tommy stood like this for long moments in a strange hypnotic state, unable to look away.

   “I need to go there, right now!” he suddenly decided.

   Tommy returned to the house, went up to the bedroom and put on his jeans. Back in the living room he found a fresh t-shirt in one of the piles of things he’d left there yesterday. Taking a jacket from the hook near the door, Tommy left his house.

   Silently, he crossed the road to the other side. His way lead through the wood and trees were shading the path as he went. Tommy half-closed his eyes, enjoying the green-colored sun light on his face. Birds were singing somewhere in the bushes. Tommy smiled. So peaceful and beautiful was this forest that it was difficult to believe there could be a haunted house in a place like this. Not that Tommy would believe in this supernatural stuff, of course. There had to be a logical explanation to all the bad things that kept happening in this house.

   Tommy realized he reached his destination when the trees became few and the path through the wood changed into a driveway. The path made a turn and the house rose in front of him suddenly.

   It was a lot like his own place, which made sense, as both houses were built in the twenty first century, made to resemble a colonial mansion. But something wasn’t quite right here.

   Tommy expected to see a building that was falling apart or at least looked deteriorating. Instead the house looked new, like it had been recently built, and more than that, that it was possibly still occupied.

   For a moment Tommy stood there and wondered how it was possible for such an old house to look like this. Then he saw something in the window of the first floor. His eyes became huge. Tommy could swear he saw somebody there. He came up to the door and, feeling like a complete idiot, knocked uncertainly.

   Tommy was silently telling himself off for being stupid and probably delusional, when the door opened and he saw a tall dark-haired man staring at him in surprise.

   “Hi,” the man said with a smile.

   “Er… hi,” said Tommy. He didn’t really expect to see anyone here and had no idea what else to say. Tommy noticed now that the man was dressed in some really strange clothes, his trousers blue and torn in places. Tommy thought it is strange for a man to be able to afford a house like this but not have the money for new trousers.

   The man’s smile grew wider.

   “Anything I can help you with?” he asked and Tommy felt the man’s gaze travelling his body from head to toe. Tommy blushed. Could it be that this guy was checking him out?

   “Oh, I’m really sorry. I… I thought no one lives here.”

   “Well, as you can see, I live here”. Tommy was aware this man was still staring, and he looked down at his shoes.

   “I’m Adam, by the way.” The man stretched out his hand and Tommy shook it, the man’s touch warm and oddly pleasant.

   “Tommy. I live nearby, opposite the woods down on Latimer Road.”

   “We are neighbors, then! Well, as you seem to have walked over to introduce yourself, wanna come in?” Adam stepped aside and made an inviting gesture.

   “Er… yeah, ok.” Tommy followed Adam into the kitchen where the man was obviously still in the middle of breakfast. A stack of pancakes sat in the middle of the work top.

   “Want some coffee, anything to eat?”

   Tommy agreed eagerly. He’d completely forgot about breakfast this weird morning.

   “So, Tommy,” said Adam taking another cup for his guest, “why would you go here if you thought this house is empty?” He poured hot water into the cup. “Not that I don’t enjoy the pretty company,” he looked at Tommy and immediately corrected himself, “I meant nice company”.

   “I knew it!” thought Tommy. “He was definitely checking me out!”

   He hid a smile seeing how Adam tried to look reserved and serious as he placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

   “Well, a waiter in the local diner… she told me that this house has a bad reputation.”

   “Really? What do you mean?”

   “She said people used to disappear here.”

   Adam looked at him for a moment and then burst into laughter.

   “Sounds to me like she had good fun at your expense.”

   “Yeah, I guess she did,” answered Tommy, feeling a bit stupid.

   “So, you’ve heard of a sinister abandoned house and immediately rushed here?”

   “Well, yeah,” Tommy shrugged and smiled. For some reason he didn’t feel like telling Adam about anonymous note.

   “Tommy, you absolutely made my morning,” Adam said. “And I thought I’d be bored as hell today.”

   “You’re welcome,” grinned Tommy.

***

   An hour or so later Tommy was standing on the threshold of Adam’s house. They had been saying good bye for at least half an hour now.

   “Yeah, that Queen show was absolutely amazing! Did you hear how Brian played his guitar? The man was genius!”

   “Couldn’t agree more. I love what they’ve done with the lights during the concert…”

   Tommy had found out that Adam was a singer and was also a fan of retro music, just like Tommy. They had so much in common that the morning passed like a few minutes and still it didn’t seem enough.

   “Ok, I think I’ll go now”, Tommy smiled seeing the disappointment in the other man’s eyes.

   “I need to finish getting unpacked and get myself sorted.” He paused then said quickly, “I can drop by tomorrow, if you’re free,” thinking how forward he sounded inviting himself back, but then…

   “I’ll be happy to see you,” immediately answered Adam.

   The way he looked at Tommy now, like Christmas suddenly came half a year early… Tommy started to blush again. That was embarrassing. Maybe he should mention one of his ex-girlfriends, just in case, to avoid any misunderstanding.

   “Ok, that’s a deal! See you!” He waved his hand and finally went out the door.

   On his way back home Tommy hardly paid any attention to the beautiful scenery anymore. Instead he kept thinking about Adam, what an interesting person he was and how great to have such a neighbor and, well, how he shouldn’t react to the man’s obvious attraction to him…

   Before he knew it he was stepping inside his own home, and a wave of tiredness swept over him. Without another thought he headed back to bed and his eyes fell shut as he hit the pillow.

***

   Tommy opened his eyes and for a moment couldn’t understand where he was. He sat in the bed, blinking. The sun was shining brightly outside. With a strange feeling in his chest Tommy descended downstairs and looked at the mess in his living room. It seemed unreal somehow. Tommy opened the front door and looked outside. Cool morning wind made him shiver. Tommy closed the door and went back into the living room.

   It slowly dawned on him that the creepy note under the rock, the visit to the house across the hills and… Adam – was all a dream. The most detailed and realistic dream he had ever had.

   Tommy absent-mindedly took some clothes from a pile on the sofa, and started to get dressed. A bitter feeling clenched his heart – it had only been a dream but for some reason he wished Adam was real.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and, please, let me know what you think! It's more of a teaser, as I'm focused on the "Yours" story now.


End file.
